Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Fighting Brutality at Rikers Island

By Brent Staples June 11, 2015 5:20 pmJune 11, 2015 5:20 pm

Photo

Rikers Island Correctional Facility.Credit Lucas Jackson/Reuters

The house-of-horrors stories that federal prosecutors keep uncovering at New York City’s Rikers Island jail bear a striking resemblance to the torture that transpired at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq during the early days of the war — when prisoners were threatened, beaten, shocked, stripped and starved of food and sleep as a matter of course.

The comparison is grimly appropriate in the case of young Kalief Browder, who killed himself at his family’s home in the Bronx last Saturday. He had tried to end his life several times in the three Kafkaesque years during which he was battered, abused and held without trial at Rikers under barbaric conditions that undermined his mental health.

The city was still digesting the news of Mr. Browder’s suicide on Wednesday when Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, announced criminal charges against one current and two former correction officers in connection with the 2012 beating death of 52-year-old Ronald Spear.

Mr. Spear was a near-invalid who walked with a cane and suffered from a host of health problems, including end-stage renal failure. According to court documents, he got into a dispute with a guard who repeatedly kicked him in the head while two others restrained him on the floor. After kicking Mr. Spear in the head multiple times, prosecutors say, the officer leaned into his face and said “remember that I’m the one who did this to you.”

Mr. Spear was pronounced dead at the scene soon after the assault. Court documents tell of a cover up that included false reports and an elaborate system of lies that obscured the truth from investigators at the time.

This crime comes to light at a time when the Justice Department and the City of New York are close to agreeing on a reform plan that is intended to change the culture of sadistic violence that has dominated the jail system for decades. Given that history, however, it is likely that episodes of misconduct and heinous brutality will continue to emerge long after the agreement is signed.